This is an extract from: The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World edited by Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh published by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection Washington, D.C. © 2001 Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University Washington, D.C. Printed in the United States of America www.doaks.org/etexts.html Art and Identity in the Medieval Morea Sharon E. J. Gerstel In 1204 the Frankish knight Geoffroy de Villehardouin arrived unexpectedly at the southwestern corner of the Peloponnesos. As Villehardouin’s uncle later noted in his chronicle: “It happened by chance that the wind carried his ship to the port of Methone [Modon], where it was so badly damaged that he was obliged to spend the winter in those parts.”1 Within a decade Villehardouin had conquered the Morea. In 1210 Pope Innocent III referred to him as the prince of Achaia.2 When, in that year, Villehardouin’s wife and son arrived from Champagne, he installed them in his residence in Kalamata and thereby confirmed his intentions to settle permanently in the region. Geoffroy’s second son, Guillaume II Villehardouin (1246–78), ruled over most of the Peloponnesos. But in 1261, as a result of his imprisonment following the battle of Pelagonia, Guillaume was forced to cede to Byzantium the southeastern Morea, a triangle of land demarcated by the castles of Maı¨na, Monemvasia, and Mistra (see Map).3 The barony of Geraki was turned over to the Byzantine Empire shortly thereafter. Although the Latin principality of the Morea survived the death of Guillaume II, the weak leadershipof Italian and Angevin landlords oversaw its decrease in size and power. By 1430 Latin rule in the region had come to an end. The effect of the Frankish conquest on the Morea has been a fruitful topic for histori- ans and philologists.4 Art historians and archaeologists have studied Latin influences on Orthodox ecclesiastical architecture, but the impact of Frankish rule on the region’s monumental painting has proven difficult to assess.5 Some evidence of the Latin presence has been found in the details of narrative scenes, from the occasional embossing of haloes 1 Joinville and Villehardouin, Chronicles of the Crusades, trans. M. R. B. Shaw (New York, 1963), 113. 2 Innocentii III opera omnia: PL 216:221. 3 D. A. Zakythinos, Le despotat grec de More´e, vol. 1 (Paris, 1932), 15–25; A. Bon, La More´e franque: Recherches historiques, topographiques et arche´ologiques sur la principaute´ d’Achaie (1205–1430) (Paris, 1969), 125–29. 4 Among the many studies, see D. Jacoby, “The Encounter of Two Societies: Western Conquerors and Byz- antines in the Peloponnesus after the Fourth Crusade,” AHR 78 (1973): 873–906; P. Topping, “Co-Existence of Greeks and Latins in Frankish Morea and Venetian Crete,” 15th CEB (Athens, 1976), 3–23, repr. in P. Top- ping, Studies in Latin Greece, .. 1205–1715 (London, 1977), no. ; J. Horowitz, “Quand les Champenois parlaient le grec: La More´e franque au XIIIe sie`cle, un bouillon de culture,” in Cross Cultural Convergences in the Crusader Period: Essays Presented to Aryeh Grabois on His Sixty-fifth Birthday, ed. M. Goodich, S. Menache, and S. Schein (New York, 1995), 111–50. 5 For Western influences on Byzantine architecture, see the study by C. Bouras in this volume, with col- lected bibliography. [ 264 ] Art and Identity in the Medieval Morea to unusual representations of soldiers at the Arrest and Crucifixion of Christ.6 Such de- tails, for the most part, have left an impression of only minimal Frankish influence on the decoration of Orthodox churches.7 In this study, I examine certain distinctive ele- ments of monumental decoration in the Morea in order to reassess Latin influence.8 I begin with works sponsored by the Frankish rulers of the region and then examine Or- thodox churches decorated during and immediately following the Latin occupation of the southern Peloponnesos. Monumental Decoration of the Frankish Morea Our books have informed us that the pre-eminence in chivalry and learning once belonged to Greece. Then chivalry passed to Rome, together with that highest learning which now has come to France. God grant that it may be cherished here, and that it may be made so welcome here that the honor which has taken refuge with us may never depart from France: God had awarded it as another’s share, but of Greeks and Romans no more is heard, their fame is passed, and their glowing ash is dead. Chre´tien de Troyes, Clige´s9 What remains of Crusader-sponsored painting is central to any discussion of Western impact on monumental decoration in the Morea. Two painted programs are known 6 For embossed haloes in the Morea, see N. Drandakes, S. Kalopissi, and M. Panayotidi, ““Ereuna sth` Mes- shniakh` Ma´nh,” Prakt. jArc. JEt. (1980): 208–9. Comments on the “Latinizination” of military costume in narrative scenes are too widespread to cite individually. 7 In a study of late Byzantine painting at Mistra, D. Mouriki suggests three reasons for the absence of Latin influence on Orthodox monumental painting: “a) Conservative Byzantium would have felt that iconographical and stylistic changes might entail alterations in dogma and doctrinal error; b) Byzantium was rightfully snobbish about its achievements in painting, a province in which it felt itself unsurpassed; and c) the Byzantine under- standing of painting remained conservative less out of fear of the danger of heresy and more out of a conviction that a static and hieratic approach was the only one proper to religious painting.” D. Mouriki, “Palaeologan Mistra and the West,” in Byzantium and Europe: First International Byzantine Conference, Delphi, 20–24 July, 1985 (Athens, 1987), 239. See also A. Grabar, “L’asyme´trie des relations de Byzance et de l’Occident dans le do- maine des arts au moyen aˆge,” in Byzanz und der Westen: Studien zur Kunst des europa¨ischen Mittelalters, ed. I. Hutter (Vienna, 1984), 9–24. 8 This study has benefited from discussions on site with J. C. Anderson, A. Bakourou, E. Jeffreys, and J. Pa- pageorgiou. I thank, in particular, Aimilia Bakourou, director of the Fifth Ephoreia of Byzantine Antiquities, whose comments have helped shape this study, and the anonymous readers for their invaluable suggestions. I also thank C. Jolivet-Le´vy for her careful reading of a draft of the paper. This article is based solely on published monuments, although the substance of the argument includes unpublished material. It is not my intention to discuss Orthodox painting in the northern Morea and Attica in this study since the pattern of interaction be- tween Greeks and Latins in that region differed substantially. For painting in the northern Peloponnesos and the region around Athens, and comments on the painted results of cultural exchange, see S. Kalopissi-Verti, Die Kirche der Hagia Triada bei Kranidi in der Argolis (1244) (Munich, 1975), and N. Coumbaraki-Panselinou, “”Agio" Pe´tro" Kalubi´wn Koubara' jAttikh'",” Delt.Crist. jArc. JEt. 14 (1987–88): 173–87. 9 Chre´tien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances, trans. W. W. Comfort (New York, 1975), 91. Chre´tien, who is as- sociated with the court of Marie, countess of Champagne, in Troyes, wrote Clige´s around the year 1176. The holdings of the Villehardouin family were to the northeast of Troyes and to the west of Brienne. For the fami- ly’s holdings in France, see J. Longnon, Recherche sur la vie de Geoffroy de Villehardouin (Paris, 1939), 6–13. Sharon E. J. Gerstel [ 265 ] from the northern Peloponnesos, though neither decorates the interior of a church. The first is a reception hall in the archbishop’s hospitium in Patras, which was described in a traveler’s account written by Niccolo` de Martoni in 1395. According to Niccolo`, the walls of the prelate’s residence were decorated with scenes from the destruction of Troy.10 The fall of Troy was a popular subject in courtly art and literature produced in the medi- eval West. A full-length account, the Roman de Troie, was composed in Old French by the Benedictine monk Benoıˆt de Ste.-Maure in 1160–70.11 The epic was widely illus- trated in manuscripts and other media.12 The Trojan tale held enormous appeal for the Latin Crusaders as not only a work of romance and chivalry but also an expression of Crusader ideology.13 According to the Western view, the medieval Greeks were to be held responsible for the defeat of Troy. In 1204 the French knight Pierre of Bracheux justified the conquest of Byzantine territory by asserting that escaped Trojans had settled in France and were the direct ancestors of the Crusaders.14 The selection of the Trojan tale for the decoration of the archbishop’s hospitium demonstrates the story’s popularity in Frankish Morea, the lands once held by Agamemnon. The second example of Latin-sponsored painting in the northern Morea survives in the antechamber of a gatehouse at Akronauplion.15 The gatehouse, which functioned until 1463, was accessible to Latin and Greek residents of the city. Three identifiable coats of arms painted over the antechamber’s west portal suggest a date for the program. Wulf Schaefer, who published a preliminary study of the gatehouse decoration, associ- ated the coats of arms with Hugues de Brienne, count of Lecce and bailie of the duchy of Athens from 1291 to 1294, Isabelle of Villehardouin, princess of Achaia, and Florent of Hainault, Isabelle’s husband and the Latin ruler of the principality of the Morea from 1289 to 1297.16 Schaefer’s description of the painted insignia matches the coat of arms of Isabelle of Villehardouin and her husband carved on a capital in the cathedral of St.